Disclaimer:Supernatural is not my brainchild; it's Kripke's.

AN:To my Numb3rs affiliates, no worries, Don and Charlie still hold a special place in my heart. I have a long-fic in the works, but school keeps interrupting (If only I believed in Pink Floyd's "We don't need no education"…)

Set pre-AHBL, and no specific spoilers I believe.

Hey ho, let's go.

Bury Your Dead

He woke with a sharp intake of breath and a slight uplift of his head which resulted in his forehead banging against something. Hard. Blinking away the last dregs of unconsciousness, because he sure as hell hadn't been asleep, Dean found that light wasn't forthcoming. It was just as dark with his eyes open as with them closed. The pain in his head fading to the background, he lifted his hands with difficulty, finding that he couldn't raise them very high without meeting resistance.

Biting his bottom lip to reign in the panic that rippled through him, Dean took a deep breath and turned his hands so that they were facing palm upwards. Slowly, he began to lift them but soon met resistance in the form of something smooth and hard. Confirming that whatever was in front of him had no holes or openings, he spread his hands to the sides and found now that his elbows had almost no space, if any, to move.

That did it. Heart rate and respiration increasing, rationality and sense was chucked out of the window by fear and panic. Window. A window would be really good right about now.

"Crap," muttered Dean, wincing when the hollow, ringing quality of the spoken word brought home the fact that maybe, just maybe, he was in a friggin' closed box.

Fully conscious now thanks to the adrenaline pumping through his veins, Dean quickly realized that breathing quickly was not the best option in an enclosed space, especially since he didn't know how much oxygen was available for him to inhale, or for how long. Closing his eyes, although it made no difference, he allowed himself two to three deep breaths before forcing himself to breathe evenly and steadily. Dean was glad Sam wasn't around to witness his yoga-ness, his sibling would have a field day.

Dean's eyes snapped open and his respiration, despite his previous efforts, shot up just a jot.

Sam

His brother sure as hell wasn't in the box with him, but that didn't offer Dean much comfort. For all he knew, Sasquatch could be in his own humungous sized tomb, right next to Dean-ville.

The older hunter tried to remember how he'd got into the lovely accommodation he was in now – someone, or rather, something, sure had got the drop on him, if the lingering pain in the back of his head which was only exacerbated from lying on hard, wooden planks for goodness knows how long was anything to go by. Last thing he remembered before this charming awakening was heading over to the pizzeria in the town centre to pick up some chow for him and his brother who was back in the motel glued to his laptop, researching the monster of the week. The Michigan town they were in was small, so small that Dean was certain that the only thing the residents were proud of was that their town wasn't labelled a village. Hallelujah.

The weather being pleasant, the pizzeria within walking distance of the motel (it may not have been a village, but it sure as hell should have been), and oil prices now reaching $100 a barrel with Dean having enough self-awareness to know his baby was no Prius and his wallet not filled with endless supplies of cash, Dean had been on the way back to the motel, pizza box in hand and perhaps a slice already stolen from within and being consumed on the way (walking took energy after all) and that was the last thing he remembered. There hadn't been many people around, and he sure hoped he would have noticed somebody sneaking up behind him, which meant the culprit was supernatural in nature, with some handy dandy capabilities in store such as absolutely silent sneak-ups. However, Dean was willing to grant the likelihood that perhaps he'd been bonked on the noggin hard enough for him to lose a few minutes worth of memory.

Shame. He could really do with those minutes right about now.

He also really, really hoped that whoever it was that had taken a dislike to him hadn't gone after Sam as well. He had no doubt that Sam could defend himself, but the thought and possibility of his younger brother being in the same position as he himself was in was not one he wanted to entertain. The reason they were in this godforsaken town in the first place was because he'd read about a series of missing persons and had an inkling it might be their kinda thing. And the only reason he was perusing the papers and not Sam was because the lightweight that was his sibling had come down with food poisoning. Dean hadn't had the heart to tell his brother that that was where trying to eat healthy got you. Might as well enjoy life and eat as many calories while you still could.

Speaking of calories, he could really do with some M&M's right about now. And Dean guessed this answered the question why the bodies of the missing people weren't showing up: the kidnapper had done the final duty of burying them himself. How considerate of it.

Bringing his focus back to the here and now, he realized that the only way he could insure himself of his brother's well-being was getting out of this box and seeing it for himself, or better yet, Sammy getting him the hell outta here, Dean sought to make an escape, all the while forcing himself not to panic. Bringing his father's authoritative voice to the forefront of his mind helped with that.

Assess the situation, boy

Pressing against one side of the box so that his right arm could have more space to move about, Dean felt around to see if anything had been buried with him. In the movies, there was always something. A tape recorder containing a track of the villain gloating; a gun so that the poor bastard in the box could shoot himself instead of slowly suffocating, maybe a torchlight – but then again, how many people in the movies got given a Texas funeral by Casper?

Any possibility that perhaps he was just in a box, and not six feet under somewhere was gone when Dean's ears picked up the silence that could only come from being surrounded on all sides by mounds and mounds of solid, hard-packed earth. Even the worms were quiet for the moment. Bringing his fist to slam against the top only resulted in a dull thump that made him hope fervently that the wood wouldn't collapse on him bringing a crushing heap of soil directly onto to his chest, covering his mouth and nose.

Seeing as how the ghostie, or whatever the hell it was that had placed him here, hadn't been accommodating enough to provide necessities, Dean felt around in his own pockets. His right hand came across a rectangular form in his right jean pocket, and his heart leaped in hope. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought about it before – his cell-phone.

As quickly he could given the limited quarters, Dean pulled out the cellular device only to frown as he realized that his cell-phone felt a lot smaller then he remembered. His fingers brushed against something rough on the metal held in his hands, and Dean stifled a groan as he realized what he was holding – his lighter. His cell-phone was merrily being charged at the motel if he remembered correctly. Serves him right for thinking a quick 20 minute food run to the nearby pizzeria couldn't possibly result in a situation requiring a communications device which was in a dire need of a power up. Even if a cell-phone signal might not reach inside the box, the LCD illumination would have been comforting, along with some music (anything other than the Smith's I Know It's Over "Oh mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head…") Dean had been awake enough during chemistry class to know that flicking on his lighter right now would only use up oxygen that much faster.

Thinking of oxygen, Dean wondered how much time he had. Minutes? Hours? Had Sam even noticed that he was missing yet? And if he had, was there anyway that he could find him in time, if at all?

Dean's breathing became ragged as panic, with a hefty dose of claustrophobia, once again crept in. Here he was, in a box, literally a box. It sure as hell wasn't a coffin people got buried in 'cause there wasn't a hint of any cushions anywhere. Dean had always wondered why people bothered lining coffins with cushions. It's not as though the dead needed comfort – they were dead. And even if there was the possibility of the dead feeling long after they'd stopped breathing, why the hell bury them in the first place? But Dean could sure do with come cushions right about now. His head was killing him, and lying prone for so long on an unforgiving surface had made him sore. He didn't normally think much of enclosed spaces, irrational fears (of which fear of flying was not one) weren't his thing. But if he survived this, he was willing to add claustrophobia and suffocating to death to the list- right after burning to a crisp whilst still alive.

He wanted to see Sam again – this wasn't how Winchesters went out. Gone and buried without any… not glory, that wasn't it, but recognition, awareness. No one that he cared about, of which there were precious few in this world, knowing where he was, whether he was still alive. If Sam had fallen asleep at the laptop, a likely possibility seeing as how the bout of food poisoning had taken a lot of energy out of him, then Dean was beyond saving – now that the nightmares of dying girlfriends had come down to a minimum, Sam could siesta with the best of them.

Dean's breathing had just about taken on a life of its own when the infamous Winchester stubbornness got the better of it. Sam was out there, he had to be, and Dean had just about enough faith in his brother to know that if anybody could find him, Sam could, and would. All he had to do was sit tight, or rather, lie tight, and Sam would come for him. And hyperventilating his way to an early death was not the way to go. He just needed to give his brother enough time to put his over-sized, Ivy League brain to good use and come armed with a shovel.

He continued his search of his pockets, the lighter found and discarded for the time being. The next time it would be put to good use was when he salted and burnt the bones of the bastard (or bitch, he wasn't sexist) who put him here –probably a restless spirit who'd been put under, intentionally or not, before his time had come and was now picking up random people to take along for the joyous ride that was a slow hypoxic death.

It wasn't long before the random stuff that was in Dean's pockets came out – a breath-mint whose origins were questionable, a few coins along with a crushed one dollar bill, and a napkin which Dean could tell, even in the darkness, had the number of the hot redhead from the diner the previous town over. However, he hit the jackpot when he got to his back-pocket - a Swiss Army knife that had been a present from his dad ages ago, with a blade sharpened to a point to be reckoned with.

Problem was, what was he going to do with it? Carve his way to freedom?

Fighting the urge to sigh, Dean still held on to the knife. As useless at it was in his current, and hopefully not last, predicament, the weight of it was reassuring in his hands. He'd not even reached puberty and he'd already taken the Marine rule of 'Never go anywhere without a knife' to heart. Having a knife had saved his ass way too many times for one useless occasion to debunk the weapon's reliability and worth.

Out of ideas over what to do, Dean just lay there, taking in steady breaths bordering on hypoventilation-too slow or insufficient breaths. Time held no meaning in this place, only how much oxygen he had and how much he'd already used up.

And so, Dean wasn't sure how much time had passed when he first began to feel light-headed. It snuck up on him – he'd been thinking, remembering calmly the one or two rare times he and Sam had been to the sea shore during their childhood and were allowed to just be children, building sandcastles, leaping into the water, burying one or the other in the sand from the neck down. He was just reminiscing how one of the times Dean had been the one to be buried, Sammy couldn't have been more than six or seven and as such didn't have the energy it would take to pile enough sand on his longer, wider brother so that Dean was unable to leave his prison without help. However, Dean didn't have the heart to prove his brother's ineffectual construction of a restraint by simply getting up when the little brat taunted the elder boy that he wouldn't un-bury Dean unless he promised to buy him an ice cream.

Dean was just trying to remember if he'd ended up buying the little squirt an ice cream that day when the dizziness struck him, and hey, memories weren't supposed to be dizzy. Hazy, sure, especially when you were thinking of a day, lord, almost two decades past, but never dizzy.

Soon, little spots of red were beginning to appear before Dean's open eyes, making him yearn for the darkness again. Denial might have been one of Dean's finer attributes, but he was a realist to the end, and contingency plans his speciality. He had a mission to complete before the oxygen levels decreased to an extent which would send him back to the depths of unconsciousness while his body died a slow death, starved of the air it needed to survive.

Gripping the knife in his right hand, he pressed the button which released the blade. Shifting a bit to give his elbows the maximum space possible to put his hands in the position he required, Dean brought the knife up.

Darkness prevailed, so he had to be forgiven for a sloppy job. With his right hand gripping the knife and pressing into the wood, his left thumb followed the knife in its wake, Dean's sense of touch filling in for his sense of sight. Three, four times over each line before he felt it deep enough to satisfy him, after which he would move on to the next indentation in the wood. Five letters in the first word, the O being a pain to carve, so much so that Dean was pretty sure it resembled a diamond. No matter, Sam would get the message. Five letters in the first word, and five in the second. Three would have been enough, but Dean wasn't content. The extra MYmight have resulted in extra exertion on his part, more energy used, more oxygen consumed, less time to survive, but it was worth the sacrifice.

Dean had barely driven the knife the third time over in the last vertical groove in his message when the blade slipped from his hands and the owner slid into unconsciousness.

-Sorry Sammy-

Hands reaching in, pulling, eyes falling on the upturned lid of the box, grazing the message engraved within, fiercer tug of the unconscious body laying it out on the open ground under the night sky, moonlight gracing lax features, hands tilting back the head, fingers pinching the nose closed, lips covering lips, air being forced from active lungs into passive ones.

Khatum (The End)

I can't resist open-ended endings; satisfies both the pessimists and the optimists.

Supernatural-ites, it was fun playing in your sandbox. I now hold a greater appreciation of those who write novella length chapters in the boys' mind.

slinks back to the familiar fandom of Numb3rs